Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of component-based computing and more particularly to templated application construction.
Description of the Related Art
Computer software applications justify the globally ravenous appetite for expensive computing technology. As the utility of computer software becomes more apparent to the least technically inclined, computing technology becomes more of a natural element of life without which productivity seemingly would grind to a halt much as would be the case without the benefit of telecommunications. Along with enhanced productivity associated with computer software, so too has the demand for more end-user specific applications increased. In this regard, no longer will it suffice that a single embodiment of a computer program solves a general problem. Rather, end-users have come to expect more particular configurations for computer software to address unpredictable end-user problem spaces.
The distribution of enterprise-wide computing applications has rested largely upon the shoulders of distributable computing components which once retrieved from a network code base can execute within the virtual environment of the conventional content browsing client. More particularly, applications can be formed through the unique arrangement of discrete application components which can be distributed on demand to client computing devices scattered about the enterprise. To support the on demand distribution of the discrete application components, application servers have formed the backbone of the distributed application and function to manage the arrangement and distribution of application components to form a highly customized enterprise application.
Despite the flexibility of the modern application server, however, the end user configuration of an enterprise application through the combination of discrete application components can involve a requisite level of computing expertise not prevalent throughout each enterprise. Consequently, the customization of an enterprise application can involve the expenditure of vast sums in order to support the development and maintenance of a customized enterprise computing application. The expenditure of vast sums to support the development and maintenance of a customized enterprise computing application, however, represents a substantial departure from the notion of ages gone by that an application can be customized by an unsophisticated end user through the generation of a document template as had been the case in the venerable spreadsheet.
Templated application technology provides for the customization of an enterprise application without requiring an end user level of expertise of a software developer. Rather, as described in Unites States Patent Application Publication No. US 2005 0085937 A1 by James Goodwin of Beverly, Mass., U.S. entitled CREATING CUSTOMIZED APPLICATIONS USING TEMPLATES HAVING POINTS OF VARIABILITY, in a templated application, a markup language specified document can specify the assembly of different application component. The markup language specified document, in turn, can be processed into application logic for the enterprise application. In this way, an end user need only edit a markup language document in order to produce a highly customized end user application. Commercial embodiments of development tools enabled for templated application development include the Lotus™ Workplace Builder™ product manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., United States.
The end user application development model enabled by Workplace Builder is predicated on the assembly and customization of extensible markup language (XML) based application templates. In this regard, the XML specified application templates of Workplace Builder can define an application and all corresponding subcomponents. Each XML specified application template further can include points of variability which can be configured by end users when creating an application instance from the XML specified template. Notwithstanding, end user applied changes to the application templates are not easily reflected in the resulting application instance which can result in a disconnect between the application specified by the end user in the application templates and the resulting application instance.
Deploying templated applications has proven to be challenging, even for the most sophisticated of information technologists. Generally, templated applications follow proprietary formats and can be quite complicated in form. Several technologies have been developed to address the complicated nature of deploying templated applications; however, conventional auto-deployment technologies for templated applications only provide for the packaging and deployment of a specific type of component “family” for a templated application. For instance, Microsoft™ Windows™ based application installers cannot deploy Java 2™ Enterprise Edition (J2EE) components. Consequently, each different component family type requires a different installer.